


One Room

by starrystarrytrouble



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, Canon Compliant, Crying, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forehead Kisses, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Kiss, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27457978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrystarrytrouble/pseuds/starrystarrytrouble
Summary: Moments from OH2 and the finale, all set in the same hospital room.Multiple characters and POVs, set across the whole of book 2.
Relationships: Danny/Sienna Trinh, Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart), Ines Delarosa/Zaid Mirani
Kudos: 19





	One Room

**End of intern year**

For a second her world stopped. 

He was a shadow across a parking lot. 

An illusion, a cipher, a ghost. But it was unmistakeably him. 

Dr Ethan Ramsey. 

Eve turned from her patient’s bedside and looked out of the 7th floor window at the tall figure making his way away from the hospital.

Desperation pulsed through her veins and urged her to chase him down. But she had patients. 

And lately, she’d been seeing him everywhere. 

It wasn’t him, it couldn’t be. 

Since when did he wear a green leather jacket? 

She turned away from the window with a soft sigh and smiled at her patient. 

All she wanted was for him to return and flip her world upside down again. To ruin everything. Anything was better than being without him. 

She looked at her watch. There were 6 more hours left of her intern year.

He had to come back soon. He had to. 

  
**A month later**

“What are you guys all looking at?”

Bryce turned around the corner of the 7th floor and saw all his friends gathered around room 42, peering over the blinds. 

“Shhh,” Jackie nudged him hard.

He put an arm around Sienna and looked through a crack of light in the window. He grinned at what he saw.

“Whoa is that Eve? And Ramsey? What are they fighting about?”

“We’ll never find out if you don’t shut up, Lahela,” Jackie hushed him.

“We don’t know,” grinned back Elijah, “But Eve is scary when she’s mad.”

“So is he,” Jackie whispered, “Damn this is fun to watch.”

“Why are they in there?” Bryce asked Jackie.

“Don’t they teach you anything in surgical? Room 42 is the quietest room in the hospital. They probably thought no-one would find them here.”

“Did he just say something about…selling the team?” Sienna said.

Bryce watched the attending slump against the wall and look into the distance.

“I’ve never seen Ramsey look so... I mean he’s usually angry, but he seems upset.

“Wait, I swear she just said something about his…decimals?” Bryce tried to lipread but he was doing badly.

“She said principles.” Jackie rolled her eyes, “I think they’re fighting about that rich patient they got in, Leland Bloom?”

The voices went silent for a moment and Eve stepped forward and reached over to Ethan. He moved away immediately and she looked dejected.

“Whoa, did she just try to take his hand?” Bryce turned to the others.

Sienna flashed a concerned look towards Elijah but they were out of time. 

“Shit he’s coming out, run.” 

Jackie vanished and the others stared at their charts utterly indiscreetly. 

But he didn’t even glance at them. Instead, Ramsey stalked out and hurried down the corridor out of sight.

As Sienna and Elijah sighed in relief, Bryce looked back to Eve. 

She was staring out the window, the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

  
**Day of the Mass Kenmore vs Edenbrook softball game**

Late afternoon filtered in through the 7th floor corridor. Hushed voices piqued his interest and Ethan turned the corner and looked into the supposedly empty room 42. 

A group of residents and interns were huddled in a corner and he recognised the voice radiating with passion that they were all listening to.

“We’re gonna take them out, right? Destroy them.”

The others cheered loudly. 

She looked up and their eyes locked across the corridor. 

Tension crackled, her gaze electric.

For a second, time was relative. So were hospital rules. 

He wanted her. Needed her. 

And she was challenging him to tell her. 

“Shit, it’s Ramsey,” one of the interns said a little too loud as eight sheepish faces turned to him.

“Don’t you have work to do?” Ethan said in his sternest voice, his eyes still locked on Eve.

She stared back at him, dazzling and defiant. 

“We’re on a break. And we were discussing tactics for tonight.” She tilted her head to the side and parted her lips.

“You can…join us if you like? As you’re playing.”

He felt the residents inhale sharply, looking between them.

It was a losing battle. Another glance at her rosy lips and slight blush and he was caught entirely in her web, his own perfect corner of heaven joined with hell. 

He strode over and stood next to her, the heat between them so palpable that he wondered if the whole room could feel it. 

“What are you planning?” he heard himself say.

The enchanting smile that crept over her, right to the corners of her sparkling green eyes, was worth every second of his newfound recklessness. 

  
**The next morning**

“You paged me, Dr Ramsey? Oh.”

Eve looked around the empty room. She was expecting a new patient, not the sight of Ethan stood by himself, staring out the 7th floor window. 

“I wanted to check how you’re doing.”

His blue eyes seared through her, and her breath hitched.

For a second, her mind sent her back to last night. She was back in the foyer of his building, his arms wrapped around her as the scarlet of his lips stained her own. 

So familiar but so rare that she desperately needed more. Right this second.

Involuntarily, she moved closer to him.

“I’m coping. Is that all you wanted to ask me, Ethan?”

She could feel his heart thunder across the distance between them. 

It matched her own. 

“No, it wasn’t.”

She was still moving closer to him, gravity no longer rooted below her but somewhere at his core. 

“We should talk about last night,” his voice was low and dark. 

“We should.” 

She was a breath away from what she wanted, from what felt beautifully right and completely daring all at once. He looked at her lips and she bit down almost imperceptibly, but enough to beckon him closer. 

Something snapped.

She saw the familiar dark doubt cloud over him as he hesitantly stepped back and straightened himself. 

“Later.”

And just like that, he was gone. 

  
**After the Senator attack**

Ethan was tired. His face burned with exhaustion and every step felt heavier and heavier. Up all night with Eve, the possibilities so terrifying that he could barely breathe until she was safe. 

He didn’t want to think about it anymore. 

And for a second, it slipped from his mind, when he heard quiet sobbing coming from an empty patient room on the 7th floor. 

“Dr Trinh.”

He stared at the usually cheery figure in horror.

She was doubled over in a corner, her eyes red and swollen, tear tracks painting her face with a tender vulnerability.

When she didn’t look up, he inched closer, hoping his footsteps would be enough to warn her of his presence.

He stood over her but she didn’t look up, still sobbing into her knees. 

“Sienna.” 

He kneeled next to her and placed a tentative hand on hers. She grabbed it back fiercely, the cold of her skin burning into his warm palm. 

Something washed over him, an instinct he didn’t know he had.

Eve. Always Eve.

Every moment of being close to her had taught him how to feel again. Empathy that had been measured and portioned out equally for patients was now a currency he could freely trade in.

Without thinking, he placed an arm around Sienna and pulled her into him. She responded immediately, clinging to him as he continued to sob. 

“It’s okay,” he heard himself mutter.

After a while, an urgent word punctuated her desperate sobs.

“Danny.”

“I know.” 

It was all he could manage. Because he did know. Despite himself, coming so close to losing Eve, he knew what it was like to almost lose the only thing that made any sense in the whole world. 

He knew how close he’d come to doing nothing at all. Sienna was just him in another life, another life where Eve couldn’t be saved. He felt exactly how she felt. 

The days and hours he’d wasted without her rushed over him and every regret he’d been stifling rang through the silence of the hospital room. 

He held Sienna as she cried. But a part of him was sure she was the one holding him. 

  
**Eve’s first day back**

Eve peered through the window on her tiptoes.

“You see it, right?” Elijah beamed at her.

“Yeah but…I don’t get it.”

Kyra looked into the room and then grinned back at Eve.

“I think it’s sweet.”

“What’s sweet?”

Eve was perplexed. Ines and Zaid were in the newly vacated room 42, Ines was warmly giggling as Zaid was bent over…was he…Eve took another glance. Oh god. He was howling with laughter.

“Do you get it now?”

She looked again and watched as Zaid appeared to be doing some sort of impression. Ines burst out laughing and the two of them stood giggling so loudly, she was sure the whole floor would hear them.

“What’s making him laugh so much?” Eve asked.

“No idea girl, but you need to get in there. It’s your first day back at Edenbrook, you need to get some of whatever they’re having.”

“Oh I think she’s already got some of that Ky,” Elijah winked.

“Wait, some of what?”

Kyra smiled at Elijah conspiratorially.

“Love.”

A warm blush lit up Eve’s face but before she could reply, they were interrupted.

“Eve, can you sign this for my patient Levi?” Esme walked over to them and looked up from her chart, “Wait, what are they laughing at?”

“That’s what we’re guessing at,” Kyra said.

“Why don’t you just ask them?” Without another word, Esme strode into the room.

The three of them watched on in awe from the other side of the glass as Esme interrupted Zaid. His usual grumpy demeanour was a fragment of history. This was the new improved Zaid. He didn’t stop chuckling.

Moments later, Esme, Zaid and Ines were all laughing so loudly the door began to shake. 

  
**Day of Hopeful Hearts Gala**

“Ethan, they said you were here. I wanted to say goodbye.”

The morning sky was perfectly blue and Ethan stood by the window of room 42, bathing in the quiet and scanning a chart when an unwelcome voice broke his focus.

It wasn’t that he was hiding exactly. He had no hard feelings. 

It was inevitable that June would leave at the first sign of trouble, she had promised nothing otherwise. He just didn’t want to deal with false pleasantries. 

“Right. Of course. Good luck with everything, you’ll be missed on the team,” he said as warmly as he could.

June laughed wryly. 

“If there even is a team. But thanks. I’m sure you’ll land on your feet somewhere too.”

Her tone prickled him and held back pinching the bridge of his nose by digging his nails into the clipboard.

“Ethan, can I give you a word of advice?”

He was hoping she would’ve left by now. He looked at her blankly. 

“About Eve.”

“Eve?”

She smirked, making no attempt to hide her amusement.

“Cut the crap. I know what’s going on between you. And if I know, chances are others do too.”

She perched on the end of the bed and looked him in the eye. He glared back.

“If you hide it, others will use it against you. I know I would’ve done, if I’d stayed. So take my advice, get it out in the open. On your terms.”

Without another word, she disappeared out the room.

Ethan stared into the cloudless ocean sky.

He wasn’t sure what was worse. That June was right, or that this time, he hadn’t figured it out himself first. 

  
**Day after Hopeful Hearts Gala**

Naveen and Baz approached the end of the 7th floor corridor, papers in hand. They’d added up the figures from the immunology grants, but it still wasn’t enough to keep Edenbrook afloat.

“Thank you Dr Mirani, actually if you have one more moment for me.”

With a mischievous smile, he opened the door to room 42 and both men slid in.

“I was wondering,” Naveen’s eyes glittered, “If you saw anything interesting at the gala last night?”

“What? No. Oh. That.”

Baz chuckled as the penny dropped. Of course, Naveen wanted to know about this, everyone knew what a gossip the Chief was.

“You saw them too?” he asked.

“I managed to get caught in a rather dry conversation with a donor and I missed it. But I’ve heard the rumours. I’m more interested to know, if you had an inkling? Working with them both?”

Naveen’s face was aglow with mischief.

“You know what Ethan’s like. Completely professional.” Baz fiddled with his pen as he tried to be diplomatic but in reality, of course he knew. It was obvious to anyone who ever met Ethan that Eve Valentine had an effect on him. An effect he clearly welcomed.

Naveen nodded understandingly.

“So you knew before he did?”

“Since the moment I saw him with Eve. You?” Baz beamed at the Chief.

“The same, my friend, the same.”

They both laughed as Naveen clapped Baz on the back and walked him out.

  
**New Year’s Eve**

It was almost midnight and Boston was dark and alive with revelry. Bright lights glittered over the city and Eve took a minute to drink in the city from the broad corridor window as she approached room 42.

It was her 28th day of working with no break, but the tiredness was long gone, overtaken by the mission. 

She had only one regret. She wished she could spend the night counting down to midnight with her now sort-of-official boyfriend. Not triaging drunk people in ridiculous fancy dress.

She walked into the room and did a doubletake.

“You paged me…whoa, what is this?”

Ethan was standing at the window and on the ledge were plastic champagne flutes and a green glass bottle.

“It’s nearly midnight.”

“I didn’t think you were into New Year’s Eve?” She walked over to him and intertwined her fingers with his.

“I’m not. But you are.”

She tried to hide the smile his words elicited.

Lately, despite the pain and exhaustion of Edenbrook closing and their hectic schedules, there were so many moments like this to brighten her life. Moments when he was so impossibly cute, that it was getting harder to fight the three words that were caught in her mind.

She looked at Ethan’s silhouette bathed in moonlight, the poetry of the dark edges of his face and brilliant eyes so impossibly perfect in the dim light. 

He poured her a glass and she took a tiny sip.

“Apple juice?”

“We’re still on shift, Eve.”

She nestled into him close, her body folding through his and fitting with ease under his arm. 

“So what are we toasting to?”

“Us,” he replied without hesitation.

This time, she couldn’t hide the smile.

“To us.” 

She looked around the empty hospital room.

“So why this room?”

“You’ll see in a minute,” he smirked, pointing at the window.

Still pressed flush against him, she eased her head on his shoulder and she felt him press his mouth to her forehead softly.

In the distance she heard the roar of a countdown and realised why he’d picked this room.

She turned up to him, their gaze locking and his warm eyes smiling down at her.

10, 9, 8…

She thought about how lucky she was to be here with him.

7, 6, 5…

And how even though he hadn’t said it, she felt completely and utterly loved.

4, 3…

That maybe he didn’t need to say it. Because, after everything, she just knew.

2, 1…

His lips met hers as the first burst of gold and silver worked its magic on the night. 

For a second, for minutes, she couldn’t even imagine how long, however long an eternity was, she was lost in the feel of him against her and the sound of the fireworks exploding across the ink black sky.

As they parted, she gazed up at him, bewitched by the moment.

“Happy New Year,” he said softly and she mouthed the words back, entranced.

They stared back onto the fireworks crackling over the city skyline. A thought fluttered across her lips before she could stop it.

“You know, they say whoever you spend new year with is who you’ll spend the rest of the year with.”

She felt his hand squeeze hers tight and happiness danced over her as she heard his reply:

“I think we can do better than just a year.” 

  
**First day of third year of residency**

The pink Boston sky glittered around him as he stared out onto the traffic buzzing past Edenbrook.

Now that he was back, just as the hospital was beginning to feel normal, Ethan couldn’t help but feel apprehensive. 

Bloom Edenbrook came with a world of conditions. Patient care wasn’t necessarily going to be one them.

This one hospital room had come to hold so many memories for him, it was almost a refuge. And here he was again, staring through its big windows, hoping for answers to questions he didn’t know how to ask. 

Every time he learnt the rules, the rules shifted. 

It wasn’t always a bad thing, he was reminded when a voice broke through the silence.

“The view hasn’t changed Ethan.”

He closed his eyes with a tired smile. 

“No it hasn’t. I was just thinking I didn’t expect to ever be back here. To see the city like this again.”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same?” 

“Something like that,” he said finally opening his eyes and appraising her.

She looked different somehow, and the detective in him raced to capture what it was. She was wearing the same outfit she’d left his apartment in that morning but she was glowing, her whole face radiant with excitement.

She read his mind and twirled around. 

“So, aren’t you going to congratulate me? Your newest senior resident?”

“I thought I congratulated you enough last night,” Ethan leant back against the wall, crossed his arms and looked her up and down with a wolfish smirk.

“I was Eve then. I’m Doc-tor Va-len-tine now.”

“Congratulations.”

He tugged at her white coat and brought her close. 

“Is this appropriate Bloom Edenbrook behaviour Dr Ramsey?” She looked up at him through her dark lashes, a trace of pink dancing over her beautiful face and it was too much for him. 

“Shut up and kiss me.”

She leaned up to him in an instant and he felt all of his worries melt at the first touch of her lips to his. She moaned lightly against him and pulled him in closer, her hands slipping under his shirt, desperate to feel more of him. 

When they broke apart, she stepped back with a coy smile.

“What are your plans for your third year?”

“Well, I was thinking of getting another high profile patient. Maybe the new President? Or the old one?”

He glared at her in surprise and she broke into the enchanting laugh he’d become so used to hearing. 

“Maybe not. But I guess whatever happens, I’ll be okay…” Eve played with his tie, coaxing the fabric through her fingers, and gently grazed his cheek with her red nails.

“…as long as I have you?”

He saw her eyes widen as he replied without missing a beat. 

“That’s something that won’t change.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Golden sunlight illuminated them as he leant in to her again, cupping the back of her head as he kissed her softly, their silhouettes perfectly matched, and their lips capturing a small moment of paradise. 


End file.
